Eighth-grader claims teacher called him the n-word, hit him with clipboard

Updated Jan 29, 2019; Posted Oct 08, 2018

A former student at Martin Luther King Jr. School, a pre-K-8 school in Northeast Portland, claims that a substitute teacher assaulted him and made racially derogatory comments toward him. (Faith Cathcart/The Oregonian/File photo)

The mother of a former eighth-grade student has filed a $300,000 lawsuit against Portland Public Schools, claiming a substitute teacher whacked the boy on the head with a clipboard and called him the n-word.

Lamar Warren is African American and was a 13-year-old student at Martin Luther King Jr. School at the time of the alleged assault in October 2017, according to the lawsuit filed last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

A district spokesman, Harry Esteve, said the accused substitute teacher -- Bruce Niemann -- is currently employed by the district. Esteve couldn't say which schools Niemann is substituting at, but generally, substitutes fill assignments at various schools.

Esteve also declined comment on the lawsuit, saying the district had just received been served with it Monday.

Niemann couldn’t be reached for comment.

A police officer who investigated later reported that Niemann was “surprised” by the allegation and said he didn’t call anyone a racial slur.

Warren’s attorney, Greg Kafoury, said the boy and a few other students were talking in class at the Northeast Portland school, prompting Niemann to hit him on the forehead with the metal part of a clipboard. The blow hurt and upset the boy, so later that day he and his friends walked up to Niemann in the hall and began to talk about what happened.

Kafoury said that’s when Niemann called them the n-word, made derogatory comments about African American families and downplayed what was happening by saying something about how it could have been worse if he’d hit them with a cinder block. Kafoury said Niemann also made a statement about his support of President Donald Trump.

Niemann, 62, is white, according to a memo written by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, which reviewed the case.

Deputy District Attorney Nicole Hermann declined to prosecute the substitute teacher after determining there were differing accounts of what happened and when.

Three boys said Niemann had hit them on the head with the clipboard, called them a racial slur and made comments about the boys not having fathers, Hermann wrote in the memo.

She noted that Warren said he had a concussion but didn’t have any visible injuries. Another boy didn’t have any visible injuries and a third had a small bleeding wound, she wrote.

One of the boys’ guardians also “expressed skepticism” about her child’s story to an investigating officer and “disagreed with the nature of (the boy’s) injury," Hermann wrote.

Video taken of some of the interactions between Niemann and the boys that day also doesn’t show Niemann hitting any of them, but does show one of the boys touching or pushing Niemann, Hermann wrote.

Records with Oregon’s Teacher Standards and Practices Commission show Niemann’s teaching certification was renewed in February, four months after the boys claim they were assaulted.

Meanwhile, Warren, now 14, has left the school district and attends a private Catholic school, Kafoury said. The boy's mother, Elisha Warren, filed the suit on behalf of her son.